


A Very Reluctant Haunting

by ItsCutterKirby



Category: Little Shop of Horrors - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Angst, Asphyxiation, Canonical Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Enemies to Enemies, Gen, Guilt, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kinda, Nightmares, One Shot, doesnt happen for real????, gore mention, i am not kind to seymour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27410860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsCutterKirby/pseuds/ItsCutterKirby
Summary: Seymour Krelborn hadn't expected the night to go great. After basically murdering someone, you won't get much sleep for weeks.This isn't helped by the fact that the dead someone is right around the corner.(Or, the self-indulgent ghost fic only I asked for)
Relationships: none lol, they hate eachother - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	A Very Reluctant Haunting

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if this is ooc i just rlly wanted to make this  
> see the end notes for unwritten things about this au!!!
> 
> edit: i didnt know there was another ghost fic when i wrote this lol. it's explicit but it exists!!

Seymour couldn’t breathe.

He struggled and thrashed. He opened his mouth but whatever was going in wasn’t oxygen. He wheezed and choked.

It felt like walls were crashing down on his throat, pushing him, suffocating him. He wanted to scream, to cry out, to do _anything._ The walls just kept coming.

Seymour clutched his chest, hoping, pleading that air would come.

_Breathe, breathe, breathe…_

But he couldn’t.

Seymour tried to claw at whatever was holding him back, but he couldn’t feel anything.

He continued to choke, hacking for even a fraction of air.

Nothing came.

The world closed around him.

His vision was hazy.

As the world faded, he heard a sound. A laugh. _He_ was laughing.

It went black.

~

Seymour shot up from his cot, coughing and panting in desperation. He could breathe, _he could breathe, it’s just a dream, he’s fine._

He just kept breathing, letting himself slowly calm down, but that would take a while.

Pulling his knees to his chest, Seymour started rocking. “Just a dream, just a dream, _just a dream,”_ he repeated.

Maybe not all of it was a dream, he thought.

A lot of it was based on reality.

It only took a look at the plant to know it’s true.

Seymour shut his eyes and rocked a bit faster. “No, _no,_ c’mon Seymour, don’t get yourself worked up again…”

He eventually pulled himself out of the cot and prepared to go to work. He had at least two interviews and too many phone calls to return. Just like Twoey had said.  
It was worth it, right?

“What’s got you all shaken up?” someone asked.

Seymour flinched. He didn’t want to look. He knew who was standing there.

Orin Scrivello, DDS.

A short while after the dentist’s body had been… _disposed of,_ he had reappeared in the florist shop, much to both of their dismay.  
Orin was apparently haunting Seymour, though not by choice. He was a ghost. Ghosts were real, apparently. Why not, Seymour already had a talking blood-drinking plant. No one could see the doctor, except, evidently, Seymour.  
So now Orin was Seymour’s problem. It took everything in Seymour to not respond to a voice no one else could hear.

Seymour sighed. “Nothin’.”

The dentist tched. The former kept walking.

He reached the upstairs and sat next to Twoey, head in his hands. He was still shaken from the nightmare.

“Looked like you were in pain or somethin’,” said the doctor.  
Seymour ignored him. With a quick hand he motioned to Twoey, hoping Orin got the message. The plant might be awake, and wouldn’t take well to Seymour apparently talking to himself.  
“You know I’m an expert on pain, Seymour,” Orin continued. Seymour just nodded pitifully. He knew. That’s why Twoey had pointed him out to Seymour those few nights ago.

The door dinged, and Mr. Mushnik entered the store. He said some sort of greeting, Seymour was a bit spaced out, and set about preparing for the flock of customers.

Seymour went to assist, and after making sure his boss wasn’t looking, he turned to make a ‘zip the lips’ gesture at Orin. The dentist glared.

Seymour got to work.

~

A few nights ago, as Twoey had been gleefully devouring a bloody corpse, Seymour was having a breakdown in his room, knowing fully well he’d never be able to sleep that night. Maybe never again.  
His thoughts churned with guilt and remorse, but what terrified him most was that a part of him felt _relieved._ That (What had Mr. Mushnik said?) no-good-nick wouldn’t hurt Audrey anymore. Seymour hated that a part of him was glad Orin Scrivello (DDS) was dead.

Seymour rocked back and forth as he tried to at least close his eyes. It was, unfortunately, to no avail. Whenever he closed them, all he could think of was Orin’s pleading, slowly dying face.  
Why did it have to be a slow death?

Seymour gave up on going to sleep and instead changed his clothes. He’d have to get rid of them. They were covered in blood.

Seymour started to pace around the room in his basement, trying not to focus on what he’d done.

That idea was snuffed out when something caught his attention.

He heard footsteps.

Seymour got nervous. He was the only person (with legs, anyway, if you counted Twoey as a person) in the shop.

Seymour peered up the stairs.

He didn’t see anything at first.

But then he did. A person. A very familiar person. A familiar person _who’s supposed to be dead._

Orin Scrivello was looking at the place in confusion, then his gaze met Seymour’s.

They stared.

Seymour put his hand to his mouth. His eyes were wide. Was he imagining this? Or did he never even kill Orin?

But, no, the dentist’s face was dripping blood.

Orin spoke, which took Seymour out of his internal screaming. “Hey! Plant guy! Why am I here in your dinky little flower shop?”

Seymour didn’t know what to say. He just kept opening and closing his mouth.

The licensed DDS approached him, ~~no no please go away,~~ “Well? You gonna say anythin’?”

Seymour finally found his words. “Uh… I don’t know, what’s th-the last thing you remember doing?” ~~Please back up please back up.~~

Orin frowned. “You were in my office, weren’t ya?” His eyes narrowed. “What’d you do?”

Seymour shook his hands. “N-Nothin’! I didn’t do nothin’!” Well, he did, but that’s beside the point. Seymour was the one who dragged the corpse down the alley. _No, don’t think about that._

“Well, you must’ve done somethin’.” Orin just _kept looking at him._

Seymour then realized something. He wasn’t looking at Orin.  
He was looking _through_ him.

The florist paled. “Uh, you-you might wanna take a look at yourself....”

Orin looked puzzled. The doctor glanced at his hands. “What do you-” His thought was cut short when he must've seen his very not corporeal hands. Orin looked at his hands, then Seymour, then his hands again, then a couple more times back and forth. “The hell!?”

Seymour was close to screaming. He backed up against the wall.

Orin’s attention was back on Seymour. He was _angry._ “What did you do!?” he yelled.

Seymour braced himself, but Orin’s approaching hand passed _through_ him.

Both of them gazed at it in shock. The non-corporeal hand was a weird feeling.

The botanist was breathing heavily. “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t want you dead! I didn’t think you’d be here still!”

The doctor was about to reply before another voice spoke up. “What’s all that noise, Krelborn? Can’t anybody get sleep around here?” said Audrey II.

Seymour shook with fear. “It's nothin’, Twoey…”

Orin was staring at the plant in disbelief. “The avocado _talks!?”_

The plant spoke up again, “Why are you bein’ so loud, boy?”

Seymour glared at the pod, not that Twoey could see him. The vegetable didn’t have eyes. “Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to stoop as low as I did tonight to feed a greedy plant!”

“That’s your problem. The corpse-cuttin’ _and_ the greedy plant. Now quiet down, ya hear?”

Seymour gestured downstairs to the seemingly-not-alive dentist. He descended the stairs and pulled a chair for himself. To his dismay, Orin followed.

“Alright, you twerp! You’re gonna tell me why I’m _see-through_ and you were talkin' about cuttin’ a corpse!”  
Seymour held his head in his hands as the dentist yelled. He was about to cry. “I didn’ kill ya! I swear! You were already layin’ there and I just…”  
Orin spread his hands. “You _what?_ Mutilated me? Am I _dead?_ Is this what being dead is!?”

Seymour rocked frantically. “I don’t know! I don’t know!” He tried to keep his voice down for Twoey, but it was hard with Orin being so _loud._ Could Twoey not hear him? If so, why?

Orin looked like he wanted to grab Seymour by the collar, but he didn’t, likely because it hadn’t worked before. “You clearly had somethin’ to do with this! What’s everyone gonna think now that you’re a _murderer? What did I do to you?”_

The smaller man was probably crying by now, he couldn’t tell. “It’s what you did to her…”

Orin’s eyes lit up in realization. “Oh.”

Silence fell over the two, save for the creaky chair and muffled crying from the florist.

Seymour didn’t know how, but he must’ve fallen asleep from exhaustion in that chair, because Orin was gone and the sun was up when he opened his eyes.

For a moment, Seymour wondered if he had dreamed the entirety of last night. Maybe he had managed to go to sleep after all. Maybe the appointment never happened.  
But, no, his gaze met that of Orin’s when he went upstairs. They didn’t say anything, but tension was high. If looks could kill, Seymour would be deader than the DDS.

Seymour turned his attention away from the problem at hand and instead focused on getting the shop ready. He needed to keep distracting himself.  
He could feel Orin’s eyes threatening to burn a hole in his back.

Seymour wanted to say something, but he didn’t want to cry or be yelled at, so he kept his mouth shut.

As it turned out, no one else could see Orin. No one questioned the dentist’s invisible presence in the flower shop, not even Audrey. She had been contacted that he’d disappeared, but other than that, Orin Scrivello’s name was not mentioned.

Except, of course, by the name himself.

He was very vocal about not being seen, and the only one he could take his aggression out on was Seymour. The botanical expert faced harsh comments whenever Orin could come up with one, and he was awfully good at it.

Audrey and Mr. Mushnik didn’t notice Seymour’s sullen attitude, but if they did, they would have chalked it up to the stress of success weighing on him. It was, but not in the way they thought.

Thankfully, Seymour didn’t have to go out publicly on that particular day, so he wouldn’t have his reputation ruined. Yet.

The day went on, and Orin got strangely quiet as it did, failing to get more than a wince out of the only person who could see him. Most likely because the things being said had already been echoing in the latter’s mind.

Seymour felt awful. His thoughts were plaguing his mind with terrible things that were only enhanced by the walking corpse’s taunts. The only thing on his mind was the terrible replay of Orin’s slow demise, which was not helped by the blood on the ghost’s mouth.

It was hard for him to keep going. He had a part in Orin’s death and he couldn’t change anything about it. It was his fault. _His_ fault that Orin was stuck here with his basically murderer.

It was hard to get sleep that night, but he managed.

Maybe tomorrow he would actually explain himself to Orin. Maybe not. Whatever the case, Seymour hugged his knees and pleaded that he’d be able to look at himself in a positive light again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! A couple things:  
> Something that wasn't mentioned is that Orin still feels the effects of how he died. He'll occasionally cough or be short of breath, and even high on laughing gas, which is not fun for Seymour.  
> If this went on to Mushnik's death, Mushnik would also become a ghost! Same for Audrey, and then Seymour himself. Orin would actually be able to punch Seymour now that they're both ghosts, hah.  
> Anyway, I had a lot of fun with this!  
> Feel free to discuss this au with me in the comments, i really like this idea!!!!


End file.
